The ceremony will be presented by the famous explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes and a full shortlist of nominees for the other 13 award categories can be found here.

Nominees for ‘Personality of the Year 2012’

(in alphabetical order):

Matt Carter As president of Sprint wholesale solutions and emerging solutions, Matt Carter is responsible for a $1.5B business unit that, as of end 2Q 2012, accounts for over 8 million Sprint subscribers. Since Carter took over in late 2010, he has reignited the unit’s focus on delivering innovative solutions through the launch of New Ventures, and expanded its reach into new markets such as M2M. Last year, he oversaw the addition of 17 new wireless MVNO customers, resulting in 2.6 million new subscribers – marking a 170% year-on-year increase.

Dan Caruso The co-founder, president and CEO of Zayo Group has single-handedly changed the way public markets value metro fibre providers. Dan Caruso has overseen a series of eye catching acquisitions – including the high profile takeover of Abovenet in July – which has positioned Zayo as one of the leading providers of bandwidth infrastructure in the US.

James Crowe The CEO of Level 3 Communications is a prominent voice in the wholesale telecoms market, and has been particularly forthright in his opinions about the US wireless spectrum shortage during the last year. As chairman of the National Telecommunications Security Advisory Committee, James Crowe advises the president of the United States concerning matters of national telecommunications security. Under his leadership, Level 3 has experienced a steady year of growth, as it continues with its plans to integrate its networks, processes and systems following a number of key acquisitions in recent years.

Andrew Grenville The EVP for investments (special projects) at du, Andrew Grenville, has played an important role in pioneering the UAE as a content hub for the Middle East region. He has also stewarded a period of strong growth for du, which has seen the company consistently record impressive financial results.

Andrew Kwok As both president of international business at Hutchison Global Communications (HGC) and a board member of the Conexus Mobile Alliance, Andrew Kwok is one of the most influential figures in the Asian telecoms market. During his tenure as chairman of the Conexus Mobile Alliance, he helped grow the organisation into one of Asia’s largest alliances of mobile operators with a combined customer base of around 330 million subscribers. This year, he has overseen HGC’s network developments in South East Asia, which saw the company become the first foreign carrier to enter Myanmar.

Funke Opeke As CEO of Main One, Funke Opeke is one of the leading voices in Africa’s wholesale telecoms market. Since launching commercial services on the Main One cable in 2010, she has dramatically improved connectivity in Nigeria through investments in both fibre and microwave technology. Opeke has recently been spearheading an initiative to bring broadband connectivity to Nigerian schools and, in September, announced that Main One was the first West African carrier to connect directly to the London Internet Exchange.

Alexandre PébereauAs chairman of the ITW Founders Council, Alexandre Pébereau is an important figurehead for the global wholesale telecoms community. An evangelist of moving carriers towards a sustainable and profitable future, he has most recently launched an ardent campaign against network fraud. In his role as EVP of international carriers at Orange, Pébereau has championed the company’s strategic investments in high-growth regions across Africa and the Middle East.

Bjarni Thorvardsen Bjarni Thorvardarson has successfully established Hibernia Atlantic as a leading operator on the most competitive route in the world; London to New York. As an advocate of low latency, Thorvardarson has overseen the launch of a global financial network with PoPs directly into the financial exchanges of New York and London.